Horror of the Derleth

[GRWelsh]

It is possible to do harm to one who is dead, even with good intentions... this is the moral of the story in the HORROR OF THE DERLETH!

I could write a Lovecraftian-style story about an admirer of a dead author who publishes his own work in the author's name but as a result damages the reputation of the one he wants to honor...

What prompted this thread was that up until this week, I had never read any August Derleth fiction. It is not terrible, but has that uncomfortable taint of going past imitation into fraud territory... I think that is why I've always avoided it before now.

[geneweigel]

I haven't read Derleth since the early 1980's and I wasn't opposed to him as I later became aware of his publishing angle. I think as I read the biographies and the backgrounds on Decamp and Derleth the distaste grew that replaced forgiveness. That said, the Chaosium universe almost should have called their RPG "THE WINDY WALK OF ITHAQUA Roleplaying in August Derleth's Approach to the Cthulhu Mythos".

[GRWelsh]

I'm leery of the concept of any 'posthumous collaboration.' The only way I can see it being legitimate is if the first author gives his blessing to the second author to finish what he started prior to his death, with some discussion about how he envisioned the story going.

Derleth isn't a bad writer. The stories aren't terrible. But they make so many references to the events and characters in the original Lovecraft stories that it makes them feel like fan fiction. One story feels like a mash up of "The Dunwich Horror" and "Shadow over Innsmouth."

[GRWelsh]

Lovecraft's fragments that Derleth used as the basis for his 'posthumous collaborations' were published by Hippocampus Press as COLLECTED ESSAYS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT VOLUME 5: PHILOSOPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND MISCELLANY (2006), edited by S. T. Joshi. If you want to get the Un-derlethed versions (Un-derlethed arcana?) and compare them to see just how much HPL wrote, it is all there.

My opinion on Derleth is a bit mixed these days, I would say neutral-negative. Derleth deserves credit for getting Lovecraft published and being a champion for him as a true fan by starting Arkham House. Arkham House has done a lot of good, not just for Lovecraft but other authors as well. And Arkham House put Lovecraft's stories into nice hardcover editions and this is when Lovecraft's fame really took off. We cannot ever know what would have happened if Derleth had not done this. Would Lovecraft's writings have remained in osbscurity? Barlow was literary executor and made some attempts to get Lovecraft published -- not very successfully -- and donated many of Lovecraft's manuscripts to the John Hay Library at Brown University (which I saw in 2019). Lovecraft's writings still may have found a larger audience... It's hard to say. The only thing we can know for certain is that without Derleth it would have taken longer or it may not have happened at all. So, he deserves credit for that. Also, Derleth isn't a bad writer at all when writing about things or regions he knows well. His regional writings are stories set in the midwest or in the north and with his own created beings like Ithaqua are pretty good. And giving Lovecraft's fictional cycle the name of the Cthulhu Mythos is not bad, and probably better than HPL's own tongue in cheek name of Yog-Sothery. Derleth is at his worst when trying to imitate Lovecraft's style and not getting it; writing about New England when it isn't a region he knows well; screwing up the Cthulhu Mythos by making everything about the four elements, making it good versus evil, and importing Christian themes; and worst of all claiming co-authorship without being honest and using his position as publisher of Arkham House to bully others by trying to claim ownership of something that wasn't really his. Derleth wasn't HPL's literary executor -- Barlow was.

[GRWelsh]

I'm trying to give Derleth's Lovecraftian fiction another chance. I'm working my way through THE WATCHERS OUT OF TIME, which is a collection of short stories. So far they range from bad to just okay. Derleth seems to fall back on the standard medieval witchcraft stuff a lot, or the Christian beliefs about it. I don't mind that as HPL did have a lot of references to the Salem witches, but HPL's treatment of witches almost always added something new or original like with the link to ghouls in "Pickman's Model" and all of the hyperspace stuff in "Dreams of the Witch House" or the essential saltes in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." Derleth's witches just seem like recycled medieval folklore about witches. Not since "The Alchemist" had HPL been so basic. My favorite Derleth story so far is "The Dark Brotherhood" mostly just because it has such an oddball premise: the protagonist, who is a thinly veiled version of HPL, wanders the streets of Providence at night and sees someone who appears to be Edgar Allen Poe walking around! And soon after, several others who also look just like Edgar Allen Poe in different streets across the city! The ending isn't nearly as satisfying as the set up, but I enjoyed the HPL biographical element and preposterous idea of multiple Poes.

[geneweigel]

Yeah, I think to get full Lovecraft one has to arrive that most didn't grok it adding on the mythos, even in the decades immediately after his death, and put them in a separate box. Then going through the separate box finding Derleth to be interesting as an adjunct tribute.

I was absorptive of any of the Mythos add ons until I hit Marvel Comics (Dr Strange's run-in with Cthulhu and the Dweller in Darkness *Now in SHANG CHI movie) and Stephen King ("Grandma") then the Chaosium 1990's published stuff. Thats when I turned full critical. I illustrated Derleth's DWELLER IN THE DARKNESS somewhere I just don't know what happened to the image. I think my dislike of Derleth was heightened by a Derleth anthology where I read him all at once.

[geneweigel]

I still have the Derleth anthology. Its a 1997 Barnes and Noble production called THE CTHULHU MYTHOS with contents:

Editor's Note (editor James Turner)

Introduction (1996 by Ramsey Campbell)

"THE DERLETH MYTHOS" (SECTION 1 OF 3)

THE DWELLER IN DARKNESS

BEYOND THE THRESHOLD

THE THING THAT WALKED ON THE WIND

ITHAQUA

THE PASSING OF ERIC HOLM

SOMETHING FROM OUT THERE

"THE MASK OF CTHULHU" (SECTION 2 OF 3)

Original introduction to "MASK OF CTHULHU" (1958 by August Derleth)

THE RETURN OF HASTUR

THE WHIPPOORWILLS IN THE HILLS

SOMETHING IN WOOD

THE SANDWIN COMPACT

THE HOUSE IN THE VALLEY

THE SEAL R'LYEH

THE TRAIL OF CTHULHU (section)

THE HOUSE ON CURWEN STREET

THE WATCHER FROM THE SKY

THE GORGE BEYOND SALAPUNCO

THE KEEPER OF THE KEY

THE BLACK ISLAND

The Campbell intro is interesting where he says Derleth needed a Catholic framework based on hearsay of Harold Farnese ascribing a quote told to him by Lovecraft but might have been a misremembered account:

"All my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time or another by another race who, in practising black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again."

Which Campbell lightly quotes an actual Lovecraft letter which I included the entirety as we don't often see it(Emphasis on what Campbell quotes in BOLD):

Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form—and the local human passions and conditions and standards—are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human scenes and characters must have human qualities. These must be handled with unsparing realism, (not catch-penny romanticism) but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity—and terrestrialism at the threshold.

[GRWelsh]

I'm trying to set aside aside my main criticisms of August Derleth -- putting Lovecraft's name on his so-called posthumous collaborations (questionable at best, unethical and worst) and claiming ownership of the Lovecraft copyrights (an untruth he may have mistakenly believed at best, a deliberate lie at worst) -- and also my main admiration for Derleth in regards to his loyal persistence in getting HPL's writings printed in hardback and preserving them from oblivion or at least obscurity. I'm trying to focus just on the quality of Derleth's fiction itself. He's not a bad writer, and is able to construct a story and maintain interest and keep things moving along. But I think he's at his worst when doing his deliberate call backs to Lovecraft. It just feels so artificial and clumsily inserted. For example, in his story "The Gable Window" he comes up with a very interesting premise of an old house that had renovations done to all parts of it except a particular gable with a window of cloudy glass in it. The person inheriting the house finds out the previous owner kept the gable window because he believed it to be made of glass from another world. By performing certain rituals he could use the glass to view other places or times, some quite alien. That is a good idea on its own. But Derleth does so much name-dropping trying to link it in to the Cthulhu Mythos -- most of it not relevant -- that it actually pulls me out of the story. Why do the previous owner and the narrator have to both be relatives of Henry Akeley? Why name drop all of the books and entities of the Mythos, as if listing a catalogue? The only Mythos reference I would have kept was the gable window being "possibly Hyadean in origin" or "glass from Leng." That is a subtle yet sufficient connection to Lovecraft allowing the story to stand on its own merits exploring this concept of a window that allows one to view other places, times or dimensions.

P. S. I think "The Gable Window" may have been influenced by the Lovecraft fragment "The Rose Window." I know that fragment is credited for "The Watchers Out of Time" and "The Lurker at the Threshold" as well. But when I reread the fragment now, I'm struck by its similarities with "The Haunter of the Dark" and I wonder if it was written around the same time as that story (November 1935).

[geneweigel]

Did you get cut off?

[GRWelsh]

Nov 19, 2021 10:26:23 GMT -5 geneweigel said:

Did you get cut off?

Yes, my new laptop sometimes hits "enter" or resizes my font unexpectedly! This keyboard is quirky. The worst is when it sends work emails or invitations that are still in the draft stage!

Say, that could be a Lovecraftian story idea! My company is based out of Rhode Island, after all.

"The Cursed Keyboard from Woonsocket"!

[geneweigel]

I vaguely recall that story. Just like the intro that I mentioned its like "Derleth, what a guy, but...". Looking at the Derleth-Lovecraft works naturally instead of literature critical, Derleth seems afraid and Lovecraft is not. My Irish catholic grandmother would say, "Don't look too long in the mirror because the devil will be staring back at you." This instilled quite a lot of imaginative ideas in my head. Its most likely a background like mine that makes Derleth need a controlled fictional landscape where, when judgement comes for dabbling in dark things, Derleth can clearly say that heathen Lovecraft made me do it.

[geneweigel]

I just reread "The Dweller In Darkness" (1944).

<<<Spoilers>>>

I noticed that the inclusion of Lovecraft publications within the story kind of comes across as Captain America defeating the Red Skull with Hostess Fruit Pies for some reason. It seems like shameless product placement for his (Arkham House) book sales. When they get a visit from Nyarlathotep he steals all evidence and photocopies of grimoires except the Lovecraft Arkham House books and the copies of Weird Tales. Thats right, kids. If the devil isn't interested its fun fare for the entire family!

Another thing is that he pits "Cthugha" (Derleth's fiery creation) to easily defeat Nyarlathotep's horsing around which Nyarlathotep is aware of and tries a skeptical "its a hoax" presentation to prevent. What is this Scooby Doo? (Lets take off the mask... Nyarlathotep!?!? And I would have gotte awya with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kids!) Why would Nyarl give a crap about being found out?